Our Lord Jesus Christ says, "If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free" (John 8:31-32).

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Beautiful Baptismal Certificates

A few weeks back, I contacted Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller for information regarding the beautiful baptismal certificates I saw him advertising here. He responded quickly, and carefully laid out the details of the ordering process. A few days later, electronic versions of customized baptismal certificates for our congregation arrived in my inbox. Along with the certificates, I received a helpful FAQ document explaining the purpose of these certificates and providing helpful hints and instructions on how to make the most of them.

I couldn't be more pleased with these certificates. First, they are absolutely beautiful! The artwork and Scripture passages which appear on them serve to teach the marvelous treasure which belongs to all who have received the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit in the Blessed Sacrament of Holy Baptism. Second, these customized certificates now belong to our congregation. Having paid the one-time fee of $35, we own the rights to these certificates and can print as many as we like and use them however we see fit - forever. No more periodic ordering of baptismal certificates for us! Third, the ease of using these certificates is a treasure in itself. You simply fill in the appropriate info on your master pdfs and you're ready to go. They are designed to print on 11x17 paper, but if your printer does not have that capability, you can save the master pdfs to a flash drive, CD, etc., take them to a local copy shop, fill in the appropriate info, and make your copies. Lastly, the beauty and high quality of these certificates make for wonderful and treasured keepsakes. They look absolutely gorgeous framed and hanging on a wall. And because we own the rights to our certificates, we do not have to limit our use to future Baptisms, but can offer to print certificates for those who have received the Sacrament of Holy Baptism in the past, which they can hang as a beautiful reminder of the eternal blessings they have as beloved children of God.

I highly recommend these certificates and encourage everyone to follow the link above to give them a look and consider ordering. I am very thankful to Pr. Wolfmueller and his partner in this endeavor, Jason Hanson (the clever combination of their names results in "Wolfson Creative"), for providing the beloved gift of these wonderful certificates to the Church.

Go now and check them out. You won't be disappointed. They are awesome!

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, Pr. McCain. But, your opinion, as expressed here, reminds me of that scene in "Talladega Nights" when Ricky Bobby (played by Will Ferrell), claims that he has the right to insult and disparage the owner of his racing team because, after all, he did say, "With all due respect."

Actually, I think they are rather beautiful. I've just ordered some myself. True, they are black and white, but so are the drawings in my TLSB and that doesn't stop them from being beautiful too. I think run off on parchment paper, they'll be perfect.

As I tried to explain to Pr. Wolfmueller, I do not believe we do honor to the Sacrament of Holy Baptism by giving people "do it yourself" black and white certificates on non-archival quality paper, printed with non-archival quality ink on relatively inexpensive printers.

To Pastor Weedon:

If black and white is a good choice for baptismal certificates, why didn't your congregation bother to put up beautiful color paintings instead of just print out black and white posters and put those on the wall?

It is nice to have options. And keep in mind that you can take the pdf to a professional printer and run it off on archival acid-free paper. In this day and age, some people may even be content not to print it on dead trees at all, but rather have it stored (and displayed) electronically. The times they are a changin'!

Another option is Agnus Dei Printing (http://www.agnusdeiprinting.com/) owned by Pr. Jeff Bloom in Lincoln, Nebraska. They have been around for quite a few years. I have ordered from them a few times (even my ordination certificate). Their certificates are extremely high quality, are ordered and printed one-at-a-time, and they aren't cheap. But they are exquisite and are actually copies of real 19th century certificates - some are available in both German and English.

I don't think CPH has anything to fear. Frankly, I think competition has driven CPH to a high standard of excellence in recent years. In fact, I would not be surprised to see CPH come out with a similar product before too long.

As far as leaving "the publishing to the Synod's publisher" goes, it certainly has its advantages, but not without risks: such as losing one's rights to books published by CPH. By way of example, CPH published a popular children's book that it has since discontinued. The author cannot even republish it herself. This is a good reason for authors to consider Lulu.

Like I said, it is nice to have options. CPH will be the best option for some products in some cases - and for others it won't be, at least not for every customer.

I am proud to say that I ordered the very first batch of these certificates. :-)

Thanks, Pr. Wolfmueller, for your diligence in making these available. They are simply tremendous, as are the Agnus Dei materials and those which CPH produces. Thank God for all such wonderful resources.

To Pastor McCain: I don't think that Pr. Wolfmueller is failing to stick to his vocation in providing these any more than all of us are escaping ours by posting about it here. In fact, I'm quite confident that it is precisely because of his vocation that Pr. Wolfmueller developed the idea in the first place.

Given the obvious interest in these, might CPH be interested in producing a resource similar to this, or maybe seeing if they can help with their distribution in some way? I highly doubt that Pr. Wolfmueller would be against them becoming even more available than they are now.

CPH produces a great many resources that are of great benefit to the church. I myself have spent more money in resources from CPH in the last 5 years than I probably did the entire ten previous years. But that doesn't mean that they (CPH) are the only publishing means to produce quality resources for the church. [For instance, Higher Things has produced a quality youth magazine for ten years now without the help of CPH.]

At any rate, it seems a bit overstated to say that somehow these beautiful b/w certificates somehow don't do honor to the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.

I agree with Father Hollywood that it is nice to have many options, and Pr. Wilken's comments as to the timeless quality of the black and white.

Again, well done, Pr. Wolfmueller. Thank you for making these available. May they graciously adorn the walls of many of God's children in the years to come as a reminder of their baptism into Christ.